Prophet Song

Lynch uses tone and mood to develop tension in his narrative. Through diction and syntax, Lynch creates a serious and foreboding tone as characters experience the disappearances of loved ones and the police and government rob characters of their sense of safety and security. After the police visit Eilish, the narrator describes how “she has been holding her breath. This feeling now that something has come into the house […] something formless yet felt. She can feel it skulking alongside her as she steps through the living room” (3). Here, Lynch uses diction, like “skulking” to illustrate Eilish’s growing sense of dread. The author also uses unconventional syntax—especially long, run-on sentences connected only by commas—and infrequent paragraph breaks to create a sense of urgency in the text. This urgent, foreboding tone contributes to the tense and anxious mood of Prophet Song. This mood develops in the first paragraph of the novel, with imagery of Eilish’s backyard: “How the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees. It gathers the last of the leaves and the leaves do not resist the dark but accept the dark in whisper” (1). The night is symbolic of the darkness that overtakes society and the mystery of the new government, and it foreshadows the threat to Eilish’s family.

Lynch also utilizes foreshadowing to escalate the rising tension in the novel. Jim Sexton’s disappearance comes on the heels of his invitation to speak to detectives about an accusation, foreshadowing what happens to Larry and highlighting patterns in the society Lynch constructs. These patterns are difficult for characters to discern because they are struggling to make sense of the shifts in their society. The less they understand and recognize these patterns, the easier it is for society to tip into fascism.

These chapters bring The Tyranny of Authoritarian Society to the fore as Lynch’s worldbuilding develops. The GNSB has been given authoritarian power with the Emergency Powers Act, which represents the official legal shift in Ireland’s government that permits formerly illegal forms of espionage and secret arrest. This act is an antagonistic symbol because it deprives Irish people of the rights they once had under their constitution. For a society to transition into dystopia, legal shifts such as the Emergency Powers Act are required to remake society in a new image. The conflict between what were once constitutional rights and what are now illegal and seditious activities is an external conflict that raises philosophical and thematic questions. In Eilish’s nightmare, Detective Stamp questions the definition of a civil right: “You call yourself a scientist and yet you believe in rights that do not exist […] it is up to the state to decide what it believes or does not believe according to its need” (65). Because this comes to Eilish in a dream, Lynch implies that Eilish is reevaluating what she took for granted as civil rights in the past. If it is true that there is no such thing as a human right—that rights and privileges are determined by governments in response to external needs—then human existence itself is fragile and controlled by human-made and insidious institutions.

Prophet Song is about a society becoming dystopian, but it is also about The Power of the Family Unit. Larry’s arrest is concerning not just because of questions of his safety, but because in taking a father away from his family, the state has made Eilish and her children more vulnerable to its pressure. Eilish struggles to maintain her courage and confidence now that she is a single mother. The effect of Larry’s disappearance on the family is also important to character development. Ben is just a baby, but the other children are old enough to understand that something is very wrong. Therefore, they act out, such as Bailey’s outbursts; Molly responds by tracking their father’s disappearance. The foundation of the Stack family has been challenged by Larry’s disappearance. The family is therefore a symbol of the larger country of Irish people, whose relationships with one another and with their nation become more insecure.